The Lowry, Salford

After 2 cancelled tours and a three year break it was just great to settle down into front row seats at The Lowry, watch him stroll on with his Celtic staff, and launch into Glorious Fool.

Just as amazing, there wasn’t a drink to be seen on stage, not even a glass of water throughout the whole gig !! Good on ya John.

As for the set, we were treated to an 18+ song setlist of classic tracks. Like previous gigs on this tour the performance was divided into two uneven sets. A short 30 minute one, followed by a 20 minute break then a long 90 min set. These are the songs as I remember them, but not in the exact order he played them!! Glorious Fool, Man in the Station, New Song, Carmine, Bless the Weather, She’s A Lover/Solid Air, May You Never, Don’t Want to Know, Easy Blues/My Creator, Big Muff, Lookin On, Glory Box, Cooltide, Rock Salt and Nails, Suzanne, Never Let Me Go.

By the way great versions of Cooltide, Bless the Weather, Easy Blues (lots of applause), Lookin On, She a Lover/Solid Air and Big Muff, although nothing was sub-standard on the night. The encore nearly had me in tears…standing up and singing solo, he performed a very moving version of Never Let me Go before hobbling off.

Good sign for the future was that he is obviously working on new material; the new song about unconditional love (and no doubt Theresa), is very promising.

Only downside of this gig for me was the single rendition of a song from the new CD and that was one I knew from previous tours (My Creator), when there are some potential classic live songs to come from On the Cobbles. I left in great spirits, which John obviously did too…his humour is in intact, despite recent setbacks. It looks like he has quite a few more tours left in him yet !!

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